Atlanta did well during the close of I-285. What about the next dozen closings?

Bracing for a full metro Atlanta freeway to close for nearly 60 hours induces a dread similar to having to clean a garage for the first time in years.

Before last weekend’s I-285 closure, the city had not seen a full freeway shut down for multiple days since 2017’s cataclysmic I-85 bridge fire and collapse deleted that northeast Atlanta corridor for six weeks.

The Georgia Department of Transportation postponed the complete shut down of I-285 both ways between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive (Exit 9) and Cascade Road (Exit 7) from Mother’s Day weekend (blame the weather forecast) to May 15-18.

Much like during the I-85 shutdown, Atlantans resiliently heeded advice and made a wide berth of the I-285 closure, minimizing the inevitable delays.

Arguably the biggest jam during the recent I-285 closure was the long traffic pace crews made on I-285 southbound (outer loop) from below Hollowell Parkway (Exit 12) to the closure at MLK Jr. Drive. I began tracking the slow hold of those lanes after 7:15 p.m. on May 15.

Once that traffic settled down after 9 p.m., crews began blocking the left lanes of I-285 northbound (inner loop) approaching Cascade Road, where they began forcing off all traffic. The delays here during the initial closure were far less than on the southbound side, mainly because the closure started later at night.

Once the closures were in place Friday, both sides saw very localized backups, and there was only a little bit of extra traffic on I-20 and I-75/I-85, the freeway detours.

I worked the Saturday morning shift for 11Alive and noticed moderate backups then, though traffic on the Downtown Connector was certainly heavy for a Saturday morning. But our reporter in the field, Chase Houle, noticed a traffic trend at the Cascade exit that ended up being the biggest issue of the whole closure.

Because officials allowed all traffic to drive single-file up to Cascade, that one lane was absolutely gridlocked back to Ga. 166/Langford Parkway (Exit 5). Houle also noticed tractor-trailers struggling to efficiently turn onto Cascade. GDOT eventually realized the boondoggle, as giant freight tried to navigate back-road detours, and sent out a Saturday afternoon edict urging big rigs to instead use Ga. 166 eastbound, which is structured like a freeway, to get into town.

The state could have alleviated some of this jam by posting very clear orders to trucks ahead of time.

Delays from the I-285 closure stayed more local than expected, although those streets were a mess. Volume in downtown Atlanta was heavy, but tolerable. We anticipated traffic as far away as Truist Park could see ill effects from such a huge closure; it did not. And while we did see a small increase on I-285 traffic in DeKalb, the “butterfly effect” of the westside closure did not really ripple over to the eastside.

Despite a rain shower around 5 p.m. Sunday, the closure was finished before 5 a.m. Monday. Perfection.

Most people I spoke to said they did not notice big changes in their routes, but some admitted they avoided driving in southwest Atlanta.

The reason this worked out, as My 11Alive traffic co-anchor Rachel Cox-Rosen said afterward, is because drivers got scared straight and got two full weeks of messaging, after the initial postponement. However, this I-285 shut down is the first of what GDOT says will be dozens of full closures over the next few years as they fully replace the nearly 60-year-old concrete on the 15-mile stretch of I-285 between College Park and Vinings.